5km in less than 30 mins - any advice?

[Knowitall2112]

Hi,

I'd love to hear advice on how to crack 5km in 30mins. If you've any tips, training plans or apps that you would recommend, please do share 😊

I graduated from c25k in January and I've continued 3x runs per week, cycling through the c25k+ follow-on programs,
Stepping Stones, Speed and Stamina audiofuel podcasts each run.

These have all been great, I really wish the NHS produced more of them!

I can run comfortably for 30mins but according to my Stryd footpods I'm only achieving 3.5km in that time frame. I'm running in step to the audiofuel tracks as per Laura's cues, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. If I ran faster than the beats per minute of the track that would defeat the purpose of using the audiofuel podcasts. The tracks generally move from 150bpm up to 165bpm.

All and any advice much appreciated 😊

OP I did c25k two years ago and am 50yrs old. I got my PB down to 26mins (in about a year). It takes a good six - 9 months to build up a base level of fitness if you’re new to running, even if you’re generally fit to start with. So do give yourself time.

My advice would be 1) work on a base level of stamina; you need to be able to comfortably cover the distance before you start focusing on your time (in other words, if you want to start clocking some good times at park run come June, you’ll want to be 1000% confident you’ve enough gas in the tank to make the distance)

2. ditch the headphones. It’s good to really tune into your body, your pace, your breathing, how you are feeling; even if you’re hurting! And if you start to do road races later ( which are LOADS) of fun, many of them won’t allow you to have headphones. Paula Radcliffe says that lots of people use all sorts of techniques to distract themselves but what you should really do is really focus, listen to your body and learn how pace feels.

If you're following the cues of this audio file thing, why not try an independent run and see how far you cover?

Create your own playing list and set a timer for 30mins. You might surprise yourself :-)

You could also play with running 5km and seeing how long it takes - and then keep doing it!

Hi @randomsabreuse

"I've done a 5k time target plan with Garmin - final run is tomorrow...'

Congrats on getting through your 5k target plan, that's fantastic, I hope the final run went well.

I wondered which coach you used and whether you would recommend the plan?

I've tried to set up a 5k under 30min plan on Garmin Connect. Coach Amy sounds like she would have been ideal, however, as I can only offer 3 runs per week I'm automatically assigned Coach Jeff; who offers a Run Walk Run programme which I'm a little unsure of.

I definitely need to set up this pace alert vibration which yourself and a few others have mentioned.

OP I do think you are coming at this from the wrong way round. It’s not a case of running at a target pace, and then you’ll be able to stick with it for 30 minutes, and therefore have run 5k. You need to build up your distance first (forget about the pace) and once you’ve got better stamina, then you’ll find your pace automatically starts to improve.

I absolutely don’t want to dishearten you but at the moment you’re covering 3.5km at about 8mins 30 seconds per 1km; you need to be running at 6minutes per 1km. That is a big difference, but it is totally doable.

The first step, would be to mark out on mapmyrun a nice easy 5km route (and a 6km route, and a 7km) and become very comfortable with that distance. Then start thinking about getting your times down. Have fun!

Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

I completed a 30min hill run this week which went really well and I'm trying to scout out some more hilly options close by.

My second run was the normal interval/ speed run and again that went really well, i felt much stronger throughout the whole set.

The third run, Stamina/ endurance run also went really well; I stayed out for 9.6km and it felt really good - although bitterly cold 🥶 my running companion didn't feel strong enough to run or jog the final 3k so we mostly walked back - and I was severely undressed. But it felt good to not be too concerned with how long we were out and just run.

@Knowitall2112

Just back from my 5k "race" attempt. I did it, 28.19! I've been training at approx 35 minute 5k pace and this beat my all time best despite being a solo time trial which is less fun.

I used Coach Greg. I did 4 runs a week - some are very short and a lot have optional extras. You can also "skip" warm up and cool down time sometimes, if the run is tough to fit in, I've certainly "warmed up" in the house, finding shoes etc and cooled down around the house cooking dinner... It might take longer to reach the goal if you skip workouts but it will give you ideas plus speed targets. If you can say you will do 4 work outs but skip one of the short easy run if you have to (prioritise the long run and the interval/speed session) it might give you more options.

The other thing I'd say is don't go flat out all the time. My plan was 11 weeks, in that time I had a "flat out" benchmark run on week 1, a couple of 1 mile time trials and a 2.5k time trial. The rest of the runs were at an easy pace except for short intervals. To be fair some of the "easy" runs were made tougher by conditions (snow underfoot meaning I was running in yaktrax or slogging through mud on the trails) so I was working harder to reach my target speed. There was also a very quiet week leading up to the "race" so you come in as fresh as possible.

That’s reassuring thanks @ohhhhitsme. Good luck with your 19km!

That's amazing @randomsabreuse!! Well done, you smashed it!

You must be over the moon, and could possibly be inching towards the 25 minute mark by the time Parkruns start up again in the summer.

I'm going to do a bit more reading around on the Garmin coaches, but I think it might be best for me to switch. Your training plan sounds great and like it effectively underpinned all of your graft.

The is @AnnPerkins
Well done @randomsabreuse